April 16, 2013

Logevall wins Pulitzer Prize for 'Embers of War'

Historian Fredrik Logevall, the John S. Knight Professor of International Studies and director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, won the Pulitzer Prize April 15 for his acclaimed 2012 book, “Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam."

“As an author, you dream about something like this, but you don't dare think it will really happen to you,” Logevall said. “I feel deeply honored to win this prize for ‘Embers of War,’ and I'll never forget getting the news from two colleagues at the Einaudi Center who heard before I did.”

The Pulitzer citation calls the book, which begins in 1919 and ends in 1959, “a balanced, deeply researched history of how, as French colonial rule faltered, a succession of American leaders moved step by step down a road toward full-blown war.”

Logevall’s 1999 book, “Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam,” details American policymaking in Vietnam in the early 1960s and demonstrates that U.S. officials chose war over a political solution.

Logevall teaches courses covering the history of U.S. diplomacy and foreign policy, the international history of the Cold War and the Vietnam War. He joined the Cornell faculty in 2004 after teaching at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he co-founded the Center for Cold War Studies. He earned a doctorate from Yale University in 1993.

On July 1 Logevall will become Cornell’s vice provost for international relations, charged with articulating the university’s international studies and engagement.